


Lonely is the Day

by TheTartWitch



Series: Rewrites [4]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, a child smuggling ring, briefly mentioned though - Freeform, maybe-ghost Allen?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6160681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has never left the castle. <br/>It might be dead.<br/>It likes humans.<br/>It doesn't want to disappear.</p><p>Title from Jim Foulk's Lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely is the Day

It might have been a ghost.

          It knew it wasn’t human, because humans had family and loved ones and weren’t alone in an empty castle that _used_ to have people in it but was now just lonely.

It knew it wasn’t human, because humans had names and nicknames and thoughts and weren’t so _pale_ or _quiet_ or _alone_.

          Before, when there were people in the castle, they were either grown and wandering the halls with long knives that glittered like the ice on the windows, or small and sad with locks on their see-through doors and screams ready in their throats. They had always liked when the ghost performed for them, juggling rocks or whispering to the cat so it would play with them.

          After a while, it learned the adults didn’t like the children, and the children got even quieter whenever the adults came around to the lower part of the castle. It learned that if it walked into a room with adults in it ( _silently, silently, learn from your mistakes_ ), they’d grow still and frigid and their hands always moved to their pockets. Once, they screamed the ghost’s name and ran. The ghost watched them go. It had long since learned that humans felt things it didn’t.

          When the adults came at it with the ice-knives and tried to play with the ghost the way they played with the children, the ghost found itself playing back, and before long all the adults had fallen. The children smiled when they heard that, and when the ghost helped them take the locks off they swore to remember it.

          No one ever came back for the ghost.

          A while passed, and the ghost found that was another thing humans had that it didn’t: the perception of how much time was passing. When humans finally returned to the castle, they wore long black coats and seemed disappointed when it didn’t show itself immediately after they called for it.

          They tucked themselves into its favorite room, lighting a fire in the center and jabbering in a language it didn’t understand. It didn’t allow them to see it, still curious about why they’d be here after so long.

          Then, one of them spoke in a language it could understand.

          “What if they’re watching us right now?” They said. Their hair was almost as red as the fire they were stoking. Their eyes moved in a panorama around the small dining room, catching on the rat bones piled in one corner ( _dusty, untouched; the lack of food had starved them out_ ) and the books tottering on the shelves ( _clean, well-dusted; evidence of someone’s recent presence in the decrepit place they were squatting in_ ). They sighed. “Lena, I don’t know if it’s safe here. I’m getting bad vibes from this place, you know? Piles of animal bones, obviously moved out of the way; books freshly dusted but no stacks lying out in the way…someone’s here who shouldn’t be. I think if we move through the place, we’ll find some pretty disturbing stuff.”

          It frowned. Should it have left the books out? But visitors always touched them or messed with them, sometimes even burning them, and it liked having them to read. It had even collected a few from travelers spending the night in the castle before.

          The other humans were silent, just warily watching the shadowy flames flicker over the walls. It, hidden between a bookshelf and a rack for hats and coats, didn’t move. While it could become invisible at will, the act required a lot of its energy and using it for too long caused pain, resulting in the moans that sent many guests packing. It didn’t think the humans would see it, though. They never did on the first night.

          When the humans woke the next day, it had taken a book and several matches from the redheaded human’s bag, but knowing exchange for goods obtained was important, it prepared some food for the humans to eat, as they often seemed to require it in the mornings after waking. When they rose and studied the walls in daylight, it seemed to upset them that the red carpet had originally been white, which showed through in patches where it had tried to clean the place for guests but given up when that only seemed to spook them more.

          When they found the food on the dining room’s table it seemed to scare them.

          “Don’t eat it,” the redhead warned, pulling a pouch from their pocket. “We don’t know who made it, or if they’re watching us now. It could be poisoned for intruders.” They glanced upwards at the ceiling, and it pressed itself into the wall just outside the dining room’s doorway quietly, trying to figure out what it had done wrong.

          One of the others spoke quietly. “The rats in the other room,” they began, and all sounds of movement from inside ceased. “They starved to death, yet there’s all this food just sitting here, fresh.”

          There was a sudden, contemplative silence. It shook, shaking its head. The rats hadn’t been its fault; they’d been starved out by the humans who’d inhabited the castle last, the ones with the children in the lower levels. They’d tried starving it out, too, but that was around the time they realized it didn’t need food.

          It left quickly when the muttering from inside the room began to rise again, trekking back to their room to gather a few of its favorite books in case their stay was long.

          It always made sure to stay out of sight when guests were over; some old instinct of _be neither seen nor heard, or They will be upset_ , and since there was no other ‘they’ in its existence now, it took that to mean the guests that visited.

          For the most part, it succeeded. There was the time when the human with the long hair separated into _two_ tails ( _one of them had only one tail of hair, and it had discovered the two of them were very different_ ) caught them fetching a book from the kitchens with a lit match, but there was only a few seconds of staring on both ends before it snapped its fingers and turned invisible. It didn’t stick around to hear their excited description of it to the other humans, instead retreating to the nesting area it kept on the balcony of the entrance to the dancing hall.

          The dancing hall was wide and beautiful, with stained glass windows befitting a king’s court. The marble floor had painted tiles etched from one doorway to the west of the room all the way to the eastern edge. At the southern wall there was a staircase leading to a balcony of polished wood and gentle blue paints hiding the balcony from most views below, though it offered the best of it all itself.

          The ghost had made its home there, squirreling away shiny toys and worn books to comfort it during the dark periods when no one came to visit.

**Author's Note:**

> Might continue if anyone likes this or drops me a message about it...


End file.
